To Struggle With Hope

By Geraldine O'Connell Cusack

The outer circle in the Native American symbol of hope is life, with no beginning and no end. The circle encompasses an 8 pointed star (north, south, east and west). The summer and winter solstices within those elements of nature predict a future of hope. The inner circle represents protection and guidance. To Struggle With Hope is a montage of thoughts, ideas and propositions arrived at during my working life on American Indian reservations and in the developing world. Over the years, I began to see the world as others see it - and not as we might wish they would. The views expressed in this book are my views alone. Take from them what you will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483484280

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Cusack

Copyright © 2018 Geraldine O’Connell Cusack.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8429-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8428-0 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/30/2018

Introduction

I was very fortunate to have spent a great deal of my life working with non-profit organisations and aid programmes - some of it on American Indian reservations and more recently in the developing world. During that time, I was able to see the world as the dispossessed see it - and not as we might wish they would. I am indebted to those people for their unreserved welcomes and, more importantly, for the insights they gave me into their cultures, and for their determination to secure their histories with resilience and dignity.

The articles presented in this book are an accumulation of my thoughts and reflections over those years. They are my personal views alone. Take from them what you will.

Geraldine O’Connell Cusack is the author of:

Children of the Far-Flung, Liffey Press, Dublin 2003

Winds the Road North, Author House, Indiana 2005

Spirits of Wood Quay, Booksurge, USA 2009

The Limit of Words and Silence, Ravens’ Wing Books, Peterborough NH 2012

Wrecker’s Cove, FeedARead Publishing, Great Britain Arts Council 2013

Swamp Babies – A Seminole Story, FeedARead, Great Britain Arts Council 2015

Land of Stolen Dreams, Strategic Book Publishing, Singapore 2016

When Worlds Collide

East 135th Street

South Bronx

1959

A lone figure lurks in an open door. His cigarette glows in the dark.

The air is heavy. Smoke weighs down on a crowded room.

Bodies sway to a jungle beat in the stench of a hot summer’s night.

A stream of light escapes. Dim lamps cast an orange pool onto the street. Alley cats dart from their lairs and disappear into the night.

Bells from St. Jerome’s Church strike midnight.

Two worlds collide.

Geraldine O’Connell Cusack

Night Entered the Native’s World

N ight entered the American Indian’s world the day Christopher Columbus landed. Believing he had discovered a new route to India, Columbus named the native people Indians . And the darkness that descended on the American Indian from that day forward has never lifted.

European settlers began to arrive in the newly discovered Americas in the early 1600s. Spanish adventurers headed for the Spanish Territories to the south. They were in search of the gold and riches that earlier conquistadores had described. At the same time, English separatists gravitated north. They were seeking religious freedom. The Puritans, as they were called, were dissidents - people who had rejected the teachings of the Church of England and were seeking religious freedom in this brave new world.

In the wild and uncultivated land that eventually became known as Virginia, the English settlers were welcomed by native tribes who had lived there for centuries. The Indians taught the settlers how to raise corn and potatoes, how to breed turkeys and how to build log cabins from the strongest and most malleable trees. They taught them how to fish, how to dry their catch, and how to store their fish for the long winters ahead.

Then, following their first successful harvest in the year 1621, the settlers celebrated a day of thanksgiving, They gave thanks to their God for the freedoms they had sought and now enjoyed, and for the rich lands they had acquired. They shared that first Thanksgiving Day with the chiefs of the native tribes. That was a very special day - one that marked, not just the survival of settlers in the New World, but the beginnings of a whole new American history.

America was a vast and rich land. None knew how vast or how rich, but tracts of open, fertile land spread out before the newcomers. Lakes brimmed with clean, clear water and wild deer grazed contentedly in the forests and on the hills. However, when settler numbers began to grow and more land was needed, conflict with the native peoples began to brew. So, in return for the warm welcome that they had first received, the settlers proceeded to drive the natives off their ancestral lands, massacre their deer and eventually their buffalo, mock their spiritual beliefs, and dehumanise their cultures. In time, the new Americans would drive any natives who managed to survive onto barren reservations far to the west - and leave them there - to expire.

To understand the American Indian, one must step outside the machinations of time, as the Indian does. The Indian has no word for time. Time is not measured by dates on a calendar or the celebration of a happy New Year. The passage of time is reflected in the changes of the moon and the passing of seasons that have no set beginnings and no final ends. Seasons merge into one another as time passes. And time is as long or as short as the Indian chooses to make it.

No legal definition exists for this American Indian. He may be defined as having one-eighth, or one-half, or one-fourth genetic ancestry, or as a person officially registered on tribal records, or in some cases, he may be defined as somebody who lives on an Indian reservation. There are five hundred sixty-six federal reservations and twenty-one state reservations spread across the United States. What is a reservation? According to the American Indian, ‘a reservation is a parcel of land set aside for the Indian – and a parcel of land surrounded by thieves’.

The official United States Census of 2012 recorded the number of American Indians living in the United States as 5.2 million. That number includes Native Americans living in the Lower 48 plus Alaska and those both full-blooded and of mixed race. Between one-half and one-third of those Indians now live outside reservation lands.

Why is that? you may ask. Look at the statistics. The medium household income for a Native American on reservation land is less than $35,000 per annum